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Saturday, August 15, 2015

Dragon Egg Purse

In convincing my friend Natalie to come to Comic Con, we were figuring out what costume she could do, and came up with an (already owned) Daenerys Targaryen costume. Only trouble was trying to figure out a suitable bag to hold money, id, etc. So we came up with the idea of an egg purse. The character has these gorgeous dragon eggs, and it seemed the easiest solution.

So I'm starting with a paper mache base (plastic eggs are either not big enough, or super expensive). The plan is to cut it, do lining, add a hinge, cut out scales out of vinyl (found some appropriate green at Joann's), and figure out a strap. I'm thinking something close to the dress so that it will kind of blend in, and not look like a purse strap.

First up is to do many (many many) layers on a basic balloon base. Currently at 3 layers.

**UPDATE**

Egg is at sufficient layers. I picked up some hardware at the store; a hinge for the opening, and some eye bolts for the strap.

Next up, I cut the top off, and drilled small holes on either side for the eye bolts. Theyre a bit of an eyesore, but I'm hoping to get some proper material to cover them up with the strap.

I'm playing around with the lining, and am in the process of cutting out tons of little dragon scales out of some green vinyl. 95 made so far, but not sure how many I'll need. It's 26-27 scales at the largest point around, but not sure about coverage, or how many layers will be needed.

**UPDATE**Okay...that was a long session of not moving. Turns out you need a LOT of dragon scales. I figured this, but it ended up taking ~220 scales. Oye. So yeah, hella amounts of cutting. Then it was just a matter of gluing round upon round of scales, trying to get enough overlap so that nothing from underneath showed. Glued down the lining before all this, both top and bottom, and fixed the hinge to the top and bottom. Not the perfect latch, but whatever.

Had to hot glue the eye bolts a bit in place as the top got pretty heavy and kept trying to tip the egg. I'm hoping it'll work/function as a purse. Guess we'll see. Am considering a backup plan just in case though.

**UPDATE**

A trip to joanns later and we had the material for the strap, as well as an oh-so-critical latch for the opening. Ended up making a fabric tube of plain white material to hold the white cord...that was then wrapped around the glittery tulle that (mostly) matched the dress. Only semi-complicated solution. Then found a latch that looked quite a bit like a Game of Thrones piece and glued it on nestled among the scales.

Natalie is going to test drive it a bit to make sure that everything works the way it is supposed to....and so we can fix anything that needs it. Tentatively calling this project done:)

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